In 1900, Joseph Brunswick, my husband's gg-grandfather, was living in German Twp, Auglaize County, Ohio with his wife, Bernadina (née Rolfes), stepson, Clemens Vehorn, and sons, Julius, Lawrence, Edwin, and Frank. He is listed as a farmer and land owner. (Click on image for larger view.)

There are several mistakes in the names and birth dates on this family's census form. Several of the names are spelled incorrectly, and the enumerator failed to note that Clemens ('Clarence' on the form) was Joseph's stepson (who had a different surname). Also, I have located county probate birth records for every member of this family, and the only date of birth that is correct on the census is Frank's, who was born only a few months before the census was taken. The enumerator did correctly record the couple's number of years married at six years; according to Joseph's obituary, they were married 4 Apr 1894.

Joseph Brunswick and Family, 1900

The location of Joseph's land can be seen in this 1898 Land Ownership Map for Auglaize County, Ohio. The farm was on the western edge of German Twp, and shared a border with Mercer County. The area of gridded streets in German Twp is the town of New Bremen, and farther south in Jackson Twp is the town of Minster. This area of Auglaize County, along with neighboring Mercer County, was heavily settled by German Catholic immigrants during the 19th century. (Click on image for larger view.)

1898 Auglaize Co, Ohio Land Ownership for German and Jackson Townships.

In the modern-day map below, Joseph's land would be located in the rectangle between Amsterdam Rd, Wilker Rd, OH-274, and Mercer-Auglaize Co Line Rd. His land would have been about in the middle of that rectangle.

Map below showing Auglaize County. The purple circle indicates the location of German and Jackson Townships.

This is the gravestone of Joseph Anton Brunswick, who was the grandfather of my husband's maternal grandmother, Rita Brunswick Tumbush. According to county probate birth records, he was born December 3, 1867 in St. John, Ohio (Mercer County), which is very close to Maria Stein. He was the fifth child of Andrew Brunswick, a German immigrant, and Philomena Oldendiek, the daughter of German immigrants.

Gravestone of Joseph A. Brunswick

Joseph married twice. He married a young widow, Bernadina Rolfes Vehorn, on April 4, 1894 at Maria Stein. She passed away December 27, 1905, a couple of weeks after giving birth to their seventh child. He remained a widower until 1925, when he married the widow Elizabeth Boeckman Droesch. He died September 30, 1940, and is buried in St. Wendelin Cemetery in Mercer County, Ohio. His obituary from the October 4, 1940 edition of The Minster Post is below:

This past Sunday on the blog, I shared a 1940 census schedule listing my husband's maternal grandmother, Rita Brunswick. At this point in her life, Rita was living with and working for a minister's family in Fort Recovery, Ohio. Two years later, Rita married Frank Tumbush at St. Paul Church in Sharpsburg, Mercer County, Ohio. Below is a copy of their marriage license application (top) and marriage certificate (bottom), as kept within the Mercer County Probate Records. (Click on image for larger view.)

Mercer County, Ohio Probate Marriage Record for Frank Tumbush and Rita Brunswick, 1942.

Here is a short description of the wedding service from the November 27, 1942 issue of The Minster Post. Alvera Wimmers is Frank 's first cousin and Melvin Brunswick is Rita's older brother.

The Minster Post, 27 Nov 1942, Page 4, Column 3

Below is a photo of St. Paul's Catholic Church. Like many of the older Catholic churches in this area of Ohio, St. Paul's is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The building was designed by Anton DeCurtins, a Swiss immigrant who helped design and build many Gothic-style churches in Mercer County. Those who are not from this area of western Ohio or who have never visited are often surprised to learn about the area's many beautiful Gothic-revival churches that were erected in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It is often called the "Land of the Cross-Tipped Churches."

Today's census schedules show the family of Lawrence H. and Justina (Braun) Brunswick. In 1940, most of family is living on their farm in Gibson Twp, Mercer County, Ohio, which is also where they had been living in the 1930 Census. The 1940 Census lists Lawrence, Justina, and nine of their children. One daughter, Wilma, passed away tragically in 1931 following an accident at home in which her clothes caught on fire. Another daughter, Rita, is also missing from the family. In 1940, 18-year-old Rita lives on Main St. in the nearby town of Ft. Recovery. She works for the family of Oscar Nicholas, who is listed as a 'minister.' (Click on images for larger view.)

Census Sunday is a weekly prompt sponsored by Geneabloggers in which family history bloggers are encouraged to talk about how census records help us learn about our ancestors.

Andrew Brunswick was my husband's 3x great-grandfather. He emigrated from Germany to America in 1853 and became a farmer in western Ohio's Auglaize County. Here he is with his family in the 1860 census:

Andrew Brunswick and Family, 1860 U.S. Census

He is listed with his wife, Philomena, and young daughters, Catherine and Theresia. (The transcription of first names is slightly incorrect as usual :-) A boy by the name of Clements Holdman is also listed, along with a Theresia Brunswick, who is enumerated as a 'domestic.' I am fairly certain that Theresia Brunswick is Andrew's youngest sister, although I have some more research to do regarding her. For the longest time, I had trouble figuring out who the boy was, especially since this particular census form does not list relations between family members. Although I'm sure he did much work on Andrew's farm, he is a little young to be a hired farmhand and he is not listed as a farmhand in the occupation column. Hmmm...

Andrew's wife Philomena had a maiden name of Oldendiek (or Oldendick depending on the source). Earlier this year, I found Andrew and Philomena's wedding record in a book indexing Mercer County marriages. In her marriage record, Philomena's maiden name was listed as 'Holdink,' which is not really that different from Oldendiek phonetically-speaking. I am willing to go out on a limb and say that Clements 'Holdman' is probably Philomena's younger brother. As to why he may be living with his older sister, I don't know. In fact, there is much I do not yet know about this Oldendiek/Oldendick family that I still need to try to research.

Andrew Brunswick is also listed in 1860's agricultural census. I love these 19th century ag census schedules because they give us a sense of what our ancestor really DID on their farms. Here is Andrew listed at the bottom of the images below (click for larger image).

Andrew Brunswick 1860 Ag Census page 1

Andrew Brunswick 1860 Ag Census page 2

Andrew had a total of 76 acres of land valued at $1000. The family had five horses, three milking cows, five general cattle, four sheep, and twelve pigs as livestock, which had a value of $300. Over the past year, his farm had produced 150 bushels of wheat, twelve bushels of rye, a hundred bushels each of Indian corn and oats, and forty bushels of barley. Their sheep had yielded ten pounds of wool, and the milk cows helped them produce 150 pounds of butter. The farm also produced 14 tons of hay.

In April 1942, the United States conducted what is now known as the "Old Man's" draft registration. This registration was for men who were born between 1877 and 1897 - those who were 45-60 years old. The intent of this registration was to record the amount and skills of domestic manpower available for home front war support. Two of my great-grandfathers and two of my husband's great-grandfathers registered in this draft (click on pictures below for larger images). Each card lists the registrant's name, home address, date and place of birth, name and address of employer, and a person of close contact (usually a wife, sibling, or parent). The second page of the card also lists physical characteristics of the applicant. Because this occurred in 1942, these cards are a great way of keeping track of where your ancestors lived and worked in between the 1940 Census and the 1950 U.S. Census (which hasn't even been released to the public yet). Try looking up one of your relatives at FamilySearch.org.

This is an 1863 Civil War Draft Registration List for several counties in western Ohio. My husband's great-great-great-grandfather, Andrew Brunswick, is listed. He immigrated to America from Germany in 1853 under the name of Andreas Braunswig. He married Philomena Oldendick in 1855, with whom he had eight children, and worked as a farmer in Auglaize County, Ohio. So far, I have been unable to determine whether or not he actually did serve actively in the military during the Civil War. He died in Mercer County, Ohio in 1898. Can you imagine being a recent immigrant to America right before or during the U.S. Civil War? And then all of a sudden being asked to fight and perhaps die in a war for which you have no understanding of the causes? I highly recommend reading this series entitled The Immigrants' Civil War published online by LongIslandWins.com. It's an ongoing blog discussing how the foreign-born population influenced the Civil War and vice versa. Definitely a must-read if you are interested in Civil War and/or immigrant history.

Most people don't generally view cemeteries as pleasant places; some even consider them creepy or unlucky places. For a genealogist, cemeteries and the gravestones within them are invaluable sources of information about people and communities of the past. The information inscribed on gravestones - names, dates of birth and death, relation words such as "wife, "mother," or "son" - can serve as an important starting point in discovering when and where our ancestors lived. Gravestones can also help validate information about ancestors that may have been located in other sources or passed down verbally through the generations.

There is a free website calledFindAGrave.comthat is essentially a catalog of interments from cemeteries all over the world. It is completely run by volunteers who set up memorial pages for friends, relatives, or even complete strangers who have passed on. Once a memorial is posted, anyone can "request a photo" of any particular grave. Volunteers receive photo requests via email from cemeteries located near their homes, and then go out to the cemeteries, search for the grave(s), take photos of them, and post it on website. I found a photo of my great-grandfather's grave on the site, which was helpful to me, because he is buried in Arizona (where none of my family lives). It was taken by a complete stranger who assists in cataloguing cemeteries for the website, and she even managed to track down and post his death certificate as well.

I became a volunteer grave photographer a couple of months ago. I like to take photos, and it gives me something different to do with the kids outdoors. Sometimes, I actually think they enjoy walking around the big old gravestones and large trees that are often in the older cemeteries we visit. One day, I tracked down an older grave for a woman living in Kentucky. She sent me a very kind 'thank you' email that was so, so appreciative, it just made my day. She told me the story of how, in the post-Civil War era, her great-great-grandfather enlisted the help of his brother-in-law in discovering the fates of his southern family members. She was trying to find where this brother-in-law ended up and my photograph of his gravestone confirmed the location of his final resting place and seemed to give her some sort of peace. I felt like I had really made a difference in this woman's life.

Most of the photo requests I search for, I cannot find. This is especially true of people buried pre-1900. Weathering renders many stones unreadable and, oftentimes, broken stones are not replaced and graves simply become unmarked. Sometimes, it saddens me when I have to tell a person that I could not find the graves of their ancestors. Nobody wants to hear that a family member, even one from generations ago, has been forgotten or neglected, even in death. But still, most people thank me for going to the cemetery and looking, even if it was unsuccessful.

Just the other day, I received three emails saying that three of MY grave photo requests had been fulfilled. A volunteer in western Ohio visited three separate cemeteries in Mercer County and photographed graves of Tony's ancestors.

St. Johns Catholic Church, Maria Stein, Ohio

St. Marys Cemetery, Philothea, Ohio

What I LOVE about these gravestones is that they are inscribed in German. Through my research, I already knew both of these men were German immigrants, but these stones give me a sense of the culture of the region at the time of death. Andreas Brunswick (first photo) immigrated to America in 1853. He lived for 45 years in western Ohio, yet his gravestone is written in German. So obviously, some communities in the region were still speaking German (or German/English hybrids), even as late 1898. The second photo is the grave of Tony's great-great grandfather, Theodor Tumbusch, who arrived in America in 1861. Unfortunately, he died quite young in 1870, so the only real what I call "life" documents relating back to Theodor are his immigrant ship roster and the 1870 U.S. Census. The gravestone has helped me confirm the spelling of his name and his dates of birth and death.

Like most white Americans, husband and I are descendants of immigrants from European nations. My ancestors were from Poland, Croatia, and Italy, while his were from France and Germany. (Our kids are good ole European mutts, I guess :) Our relatives came over at different times, though, which made their immigrant experiences somewhat different due to improvements in technology and changes in American immigration legislation and processing.

Tony's ancestors came to America in the 19th century, mostly from 1830 to the mid-1850s. Many of them were farmers from small villages in northeastern France (Alsace-Lorraine) and northwestern Germany, but there were a few tradesmen (blacksmiths, coopers, etc.) that made the journey as well. At this time, the Trans-Atlantic journey took an average of about seven weeks, but it could take upwards of 2-3 months depending on weather conditions and steering currents. The following exerpt describes how two of my husband's ancestral families came to the U.S from France:

"The Grill(i)ots (in 1838) and Aubrys (in 1840) traveled to the United States on American sailing ships. Usually these packet ships carried cargo, perhaps bales of cotton, on the voyage from America to France. For the return trip, the empty holds were transformed into a semblance of living quarters for the emigrants. Shelves arranged around the walls, three tiers high, served as berths. Each family was assigned an appropriate space that some managed to curtain off for a bit of privacy. They went up on deck for exercise, fresh air, and to prepare food on cook stoves." Source: http://www.wmcnitt.net/aubry/emigrati.htm

Typical steerage immigrant quarters

Conditions in steerage were usually quite bad. The quarters were cramped and unsanitary. Air circulation was poor and temperatures became dangerously hot during the summer months. People did not bathe and, at this time, were expected to provide their own food, which, even if properly "preserved" did gradually spoil. The stench was probably pretty awful. Passengers suffered from seasickness and other serious illnesses and injuries, and, unfortunately, there were occasionally deaths during the voyage.

In 1855, Congress enacted a Passenger Act as an attempt to improve conditions for immigrants heading to America. It included provisions to limit the number of passengers per size of ship, increase the height of living quarters to at least 6 ft (it was usually 5.5 ft or less prior to this), provide adequate food, water, and ventilation, maintain a "quarantine" area for the sick and wash areas for all passengers, and provide some discipline to passengers who broke simple laws (theft was a large problem). There were fines if these provisions were not upheld; however, most historians agree that the law was not regularly enforced and the fines were not large enough to get every ship captain to adhere to the provisions.

It was about this time that the first steamships started making Trans-Atlantic voyages. By the mid-1870s, dozens of steamships were regularly carrying immigrants from Europe to America. While conditions onboard these ships were still cramped and unhygienic (for lower class passengers), the length of the trips was signifcantly less: About 5-7 days from English/Irish ports and no more than 2 weeks from ports in central and southern Europe.

My ancestors came to America between the 1890s and 1921, so they did have much shorter journeys. However, they also had to go through more red tape once they arrived at port, which included more thorough medical inspections, grouping procedures, and obtaining legal paperwork. Another post for another day, though :) I also intend to write about WHAT may have driven our ancestors to leave their homes and make a long, difficult, and dangerous journey halfway around the world to start new lives.

Finding Ship Manifests

In 1819, the U.S. passed a customs law that required ship captains to list the names of each passenger traveling on his ship. Because of this law (and the good fortune that most of them survived to be preserved and catalogued), we actually have pretty good records of the immigrants on each ship passage. Ancestry.com is the best, most-complete online source of records and images of the original ship lists (known as 'manifests') that you can download. If you choose to get a 14-day free trial, these documents are the first ones I would search for, because, apart from visiting the National Archives in Washington, D.C, they are difficult to obtain elsewhere. Below is a sample manifest from 1853 when Andreas Braunswig, Tony's great-great-great-grandfather, came to America. It lists his name, age, country of birth, place of last residence, place to which he is going, occupation, and pieces of baggage. Once in America, he used name "Andrew Brunswick." It was fairly common for immigrants to anglicize their name, so keep that in mind when doing your own searching.

Andrew Brunswick "Bessel" Ship Manifest 1853

There is a free site on which you can find some immigrant ship manifests. The Immigrant Ship Transcribers Guild is a network of volunteers who read through and manually transcribe original ship lists, which are then posted on the website. Because it relies on volunteer work, it is by no means a complete record of all ship lists, but I did find some of Tony's ancestors in their database, which is continually growing and being updated.